Peer Bedaux Architect

Just as some writers keep on writing the same book, Peer Bedaux (Goirle, NL, 1940) seems to keep on designing the same building. Bedaux’s talent for limitation is expressed both in his oeuvre as a whole and in his individual buildings, which convey their power of expression through the deliberate limitation of the architectural resources which have gone into their making. The architecture of Bedaux seems simpler than it is, just as a still-life by Morandi appears deceptively simple. Bedaux’s houses can certainly be regarded as an architectural variant of Morandi’s still-lifes, in which a limited number of everyday objects form a balanced composition in a slightly different way each time. In the case of Peer Bedaux, the strength and importance of his oeuvre lie in the determination with which he has investigated, tested and perfected certain themes in all their variations. By consistently clinging to that formula, he has created an oeuvre that is saturated with architectural conventions, but runs counter to one of the major conventions of the present, namely the ambition to be original.

Authors: Hans Ibelings, Marc Mulders
Photography: Peter Cuypers
Design: Kinkorn, Maarten Meevis

2006, Valiz | hardcover | 168 pp. | 32,5 x 24,5 cm (h x w) | English, Dutch | ISBN 978-90-78088-066